Mo Brooks: Trump Is Too Busy To Grasp The ‘Weeds’ Of Budget Legislation

Amid questions over whether President Donald Trump understands how a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government works, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) defended the President, saying Trump doesn’t have time to fully understand the “weeds” of the 30-day budget bill the House is set to vote on Thursday.

“The President has a lot on his plate. He’s not able to get into the weeds on this legislation like we in the House and Senate are,” Brooks said during an interview with Brooke Baldwin on CNN Thursday. “He’s got nuclear missile threats out of North Korea that he has to pay some attention to. He’s got the potential of a nuclearized Iran he has to pay attention to.”

“Sure,” Baldwin said. “But what about domestic issues like the shutting down of the U.S. government. That has to be a priority, no?”

Brooks then agreed that avoiding a shutdown “has to be a priority” and that he was “quite comfortable” knowing that, if the House and Senate “coalesce on the funding bill, that the President will sign it.”

Trump is in the hot seat over a tweet he posted about the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) on Thursday, raising eyebrows about whether the President understood his party’s plan for incorporating funding for CHIP into a short-term funding bill. House leaders had planned to vote on a 30-day resolution Thursday that would include six years of funding for the CHIP program as a way to force Democrats’ hands, but the President threw a wrench in those plans when he tweeted that “CHIP should be part of a long term solution, not a 30 Day, or short term, extension!”